Anxious Anticipation

It's Saturday afternoon, which means I am about 14 hours away from my long run for the week. Tomorrow's distance? 16 miles. I am both excited to take on the task and worried about all the things that could happen simultaneously. The last two weeks of runs have been pretty good, in my opinion. My last longish run wound up being the last training run for the Suffolk County Marathon on the 13th. It was supposed to be two 5 mile loops in the town of Babylon, along the bay, but for some reason it was changed to the 10k trail course of Southard Pond Park. Charlie switched his late night so he could run with me and our friends Laurie and Kim. It was a tough course, lots of gravel and horse manure to maneuver around. We managed to do 7.45 miles in 1:46:53. The best part was the BOGO drinks after the run at Mary Carroll's.  I'm not a drinker, but that Angry Orchard hard cider was one of the best I have tasted!!

Laurie, Kim, Charlie and me (PIC courtesy of Laurie!)

The morning of the 16th I ran a 10k on the treadmill in 1:17:01. That's a 12:24 mile. Then after another treadmil1 run on Tuesday, yesterday I managed to do something I haven't done in what feels like forever. After a 5 minute warm up walk at 3.0 mph, I set the jog interval speed to 3.7 mph and the run speed to 5.3 mph. I walked for 1 minute at 3.7 and then ran for 25 minutes STRAIGHT at 5.3 mph. I then took a 2 minute walk break at 3.7 and finished my 40 minute run with 12 minutes at 5.3. That's only 3 minutes of walking in a 40 minute period, if you're doing the math! I did 3.45 miles in those 40 minutes and managed to average an 11:36 pace!

That's a major improvement for me and something I need to transfer to the streets when we are out on our long runs. Of course there is a difference between treadmill and outdoor running AND sustaining a pace for 5 miles versus 15, but I feel if I can improve those initial 5 miles, miles 15 and 16 won't seem so bad. If I can continue to push myself on my weekday runs, then eventually the first 10 miles will be stronger, and the marathon possibly won't drag on forever! The reason I am most concerned about this is that damn 4:30 course limit on the 18 mile marathon tune up run we have coming up on September 20th. With that being said, my 16 miler needs to be done under 4:00!!